First Night on the Grill this Season

Last night was a great night to grill. It was about 85 degrees outside so no oven use in my plans. I has set out to prepare Fennel-Marinated Halibut with Fennel Tzatziki for mom and dad and some sausage and "speedies" (skewered marinated chicken breast tenders) for the kids. The fish recipe is from Ruth Reichl's 2009 Gourmet Today cookbook; I did spot a version of the recipe at myrecipe.com though, find it here. I've probably cooked 40 recipes out of this book since January! While shopping I ran across some whole Boston Mackerel in the market so grabbed two of those.
Game plan: Marinate the Halibut in lemon juice, oil and crushed, toasted fennel seed. Skewer and marinate the speedies in bottled Teriyaki marinade. Make the Fennel Tzatziki which is fennel bulb chopped and mixed with lemon; crushed, toasted fennel seed; Greek yogurt; lemon juice; chopped fennel fronds. Mix up and refrigerate. Clean the Mackerel (Who knew? Not gutted...seemed to be a scaleless fish.) Marinate in some lemon and oil and then roll in plain breadcrumbs.
Next? Fire up a Martini and then fire up the grill. I started with the sausage and some marinated red peppers that I forgot to mention. Once they had some nice coloring I moved them to the side and put down the speedies. They cooked quickly and I moved all of the cooked food to plates. I oiled the surface (I cook on charcoal in a Weber with a cast iron grill surface, more on that in a later post) and put on the fish. The Halibut cooked up nicely with little fuss, the Mackerel proved a bit tricky and fell apart.
My feelings about the meal are mixed. The Halibut with the sauce was great and I'll do it again. The mix of the grilled fish and the cool, tangy Tzatziki was just great. I didn't like the Mackerel. Next time I'll ask them to clean it and I'll see about really oiling the grill surface to prevent sticking. The speedies were great to pick at as the meal wound down.